Recently, airlines have begun to include airplane airbags in the seat belts of at least some seats in their airplanes. These airplane airbags have been found to lessen the impact of minor accidents on passengers, and in particular to reduce head and neck injury to the passengers. Such airbags operate differently than automotive airbags, which expand out of the car dashboard towards the driver or front seat passenger. Instead, airplane airbags inflate away from the passenger to generate a cushion between the passenger and any structure forward of the passenger (e.g., another row of seats or a bulkhead).
Airplane airbags are typically energized for activation only when the tongue plate (or latch plate) and buckle on the passenger's seat belt are fastened together. Airbag inflation occurs at a very high rate. To prevent accidental activation of such airbags, it is important to ensure that no power is provided during the shipping, assembly, and installation of seat belts that include airplane airbags. For the same reason, it is also important to ensure that the tongue plate and buckle portions of the passenger seat belt be kept separated because static charge might accumulate on the tongue plate and buckle and possibly cause airbag inflation. Typically, the buckle and tongue plate for airplane seat belts are both formed from metallic materials.
To keep the two portions (buckle and tongue plate) separate, at least one of the two portions is typically wrapped in a plastic wrap material to prevent contact between the two metallic parts during shipping, assembly and installation. However, this is not a robust solution as the plastic wrap material used to cover the part (or parts) is easily torn, potentially allowing contact between the buckle and tongue plate and thus potentially risking airbag inflation during shipping, assembly, and installation. Furthermore, a worker might remove the plastic wrap material prior to assembly and installation, not understanding that that plastic wrap material provided protection from accidental airbag discharge.